Television

Archer

The first couple of seasons were about a spy agency. Then they got defunded and became cocaine dealers? Then Archer got into a coma and just hallucinated wild stuff during said coma. I admit I do not remember the last few seasons.

Prison Break.

Season one is breaking out of prison. So far so good.

Season two is a manhunt. That's fair, it's the aftermath.

Season three is breaking out of prison.. again! But this time in Panama. Technically that is the show, so alright.

Season four is a secret shadow organization who can cure all diseases but don't.

Also there is a post-show film that adds another prison break for some reason. Also I'm learning the show was revived for a fifth season, I can't say what that's about.

I say this regretfully: Westworld.

Look, honestly I was into it up until the last episode. I knew the story was twisting and turning a bit too much but I kept watching and very much enjoyed the last season.

I say that it lost sight of its original premise because yes, technically it did. But that doesn’t mean the content wasn’t still great — this is a perfect example of losing your audience by not following the original narrative. I sometimes think the show would’ve been more financially successful had they dragged out the first season into several but I wouldn’t have wanted them to actually do that.

Dr. Who.

When started, it was a show to teach kids about history.

Sherlock unfortunately. S1-2 are some of the best TV I've ever watched. 3 was okay, and then 4 was completely off the rails, with each episode being about some zany conspiracy. Granted it can't take all the credit, Doyle did the same.

Happy Days when the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis.

The Walking Dead. It just became a generic human vs human thing after a while. Then Negan, and then back to boring TV

Rosanne, the 90's sitcom starring Rosanne Barr and John Goodman. One of the many "living room set with a couch in the middle" family sitcoms, this one about an Illinois blue collar family, the Connors, and their life and times trying to make ends meet. Eight seasons of this premise making acclaimed TV, and then in the ninth season, they win the lottery, go on all these outlandish adventures, Dan cheats on Rosanne, etc. The series finale reveals the whole show is a story being told by Rosanne Barr, and that the last season was mostly bullshit, they hadn't won the lottery, Dan had died of his heart attack in the previous season, and the show ended on a "wtf was all that?" kind of note.

I think I'll also mention Lassie, which is just kinda weird. Non-Americans might not even know what I'm talking about. It's a show about an unusually intelligent rough collie named Lassie. Most folks who are familiar with it know it by its first incarnation, where Lassie is a farm dog who spends her days with the farm boy named Little Timmy. Little Timmy goes on precocious little adventures and often gets into trouble, and Lassie has to help, sometimes by fetching objects but often by fetching the adults to help. And everyone pretends that they can understand Lassie's barking. Here is a stereotypical exchange from the show:

MOM is in kitchen. LASSIE enters

Lassie: Bark. Bark. Woof.

Mom: What is it girl?

Lassie: Bark. Bark.

Mom: Timmy fell down a well?! Where?"

Lassie: Woof. Bark bark.

Mom: On Old Mister Knickerficker's ranch? Well let's go!

Note: You know how Darth Vader didn't say "Luke, I am your father" or Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty?" Yeah, Timmy never fell down a well. He fell off cliffs, into rivers and lakes, down mine shafts and into quicksand, but never into a well.

The thing is, after several seasons, Lassie just...became a forest ranger's dog. And other than "show about a smart, fluffy dog" it had basically nothing in common with it's original run. And then for it's last few seasons, it became an anthology series where Lassie roamed around on her own having random adventures of the week.

Simpsons. They were really against celebrityism and pop culture in the beginning, then they went in the complete opposite and started worshiping celebrities. Ugh. New simpsons is dead to me.

Lost

Weeds

Sliders lost mostly their original cast, and plot of new wacky alternative realities and got obsessed with running from and fighting the Kromaggs.

Agents of Shield.

S1 and 2 Sort of a normal seasons - agents dealing with powered people, the fall of Shield S3 Space travel for a bit, more Inhumans S4 Ghost Rider, ghosts and stuck in a computer dystopian nightmare S5 Time travel S6 Space travel S7 More time travel

The Attack on Titan finale left me scratching my head

Family Matters

Show went from a wholesome sitcom about a family in Chicago to whacky borderline scifi. It was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers and just started going off the rails like around the 4th season when they retconned the existance of the one daughter Judy. Then by the end it just became the Steve Urkel show.

“24” Just got more and more absurd and soap operatic. Also how much can one man go through?

There is a phrase for that, it's called "Jumping the Shark".

Arrested Development

Lost.

supernatural, After krikpke left season 5, it just went in a totally wierd parasocial/sexual direction with the fans. and basically it was filler ever 2-3 seasons, til they finally ended it. and then Jensen tried to sneakingly with his wife start a new series behind jared's back which cause a whole drama situation going on. being both producers, you and your wife was pretty deliberate in not acknowledging jared or misha(he dint make a big stink about it, because he saw the fallout of jared and jensen and dint want the same problem to arise).

ISAIP, this series was on life support after 11-12, they also got too old physically, plus the plastic surgery is pretty obvious at that point. the actors are clinging on this for dear life, because they arnt hollywood material outside the show, hence why MAC is so wierd now(the actor) outside the show.

nutrek shows, not even based on continuity or the original intent, and that was verified by Kurtzman who had no interest in the lore, he was much like Les moonves with ENTERPRISE.

SGU, YEA they shouldnt have started with the drama at all, shouldve done like sg1, in between seasons or mid-season to help break up large plots.

The 100

Community is the only one which comes to mind.

Reboot definitely ended up that way. Went from a simple defeat the enemy every week and beat the user in the game cube storyline to a much more serious storyline. Ended up with part of a final season where a man with a gun tries to get back home as an angelic looking super virus tries infecting every system by spreading the word ( mass sprite control ). Only to end on a cliffhanger after the super virus was taken care of.

Possibly cheating, because anime, but Shokugeki no Soma (Food Wars). Initially a series following the protagonist as he entered a school where every dispute was settled with a cook off between two students (and sometimes a teacher). This seems over the top, but the food was always solid (they had a consultant just for it) and felt like something you could make with the right skill and ingredients.

In the final arc, they toss this all out to introduce a villain who can steal a chef’s signature dish/technique (something that is supposed to be unique to that chef) he gets a hold of their knife after winning a food battle. And he can wield those knives in any combination to form new dishes no one else can do. Just because. Also the dishes get less interesting in general, because it’s about powers related to cooking and not the food.

iZombie

Original premise: Liv is a doctor is accidentally turned into a zombie. She becomes a medical examiner in order to have access to brains. After discovering eating the brains of murder victims gives her flashbacks and moments leading up to the victim's death, she helps a detective to solve crimes by pretending to be psychic. A side effect of the brain eating is that she may temporarily acquire skills or idiosyncrasies of the victim. Meanwhile, Blaine, another zombie, is turning rich people into zombies to extort them in return for brains of people he's killing.

How it went: Pretty much everyone in the main cast is a zombie (or were-zombie), there's an evil corporation, an entire city full of zombies, a good guy private military contractor that turns into a bad guy private military contractor, and etc. that I won't spoil any further. And eating a brain pretty much makes you take on that person's entire personality wholesale.

The thing is, it was great! It ended pretty strong without wearing out its welcome or getting too absurd plot-wise. Meanwhile everyone in the cast is clearly having fun with the over-the-top, flanderised personality mechanics, and it's just fun to watch.

Oz the prison show.

A lot of shows that begin with a mystery or quest to find a certain character or place, and then they find it in the first season finale... when season two starts, you realize whoever came up with it had no idea where to go from there.

Parks and Rec got a little wacky in the last season or two.

edit: also this season of Reluctant Traveler has been terrible. Much less focus on geography and food, more focus on weird social practices. Dedicated an entire episode to letting Prince William ramble. And the entire South Korea episode was about completely superficial bullshit like social media, modeling, and plastic surgery.

I stopped watching american gods with season 2. season 1 was amazing and season two was like. is anything related to the story even going on half the time.